Which publisher released Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems in 1956?

City Lights Books released Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems in 1956.

The San Francisco publisher issued the book as part of its Pocket Poets Series, which was founded by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin. Ferlinghetti also owned City Lights bookstore and became closely associated with Ginsberg’s publication.

The book’s publication led to a legal challenge after customs officials seized copies imported from England. Ferlinghetti was arrested on obscenity charges, but Judge Clayton W. Horn ruled in 1957 that “Howl” had literary and social value.

City Lights remains strongly identified with Beat literature because it published several important writers and helped create an independent literary culture in San Francisco. The publisher’s role is sometimes confused with Grove Press, which published other controversial works, including William S. Burroughs’s Naked Lunch in the United States.